Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery on the Doctrine of the Faith, speaks during a press conference about a new Vatican document on human dignity on April 8, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
Vatican City, Apr 8, 2024 / 12:10 pm (CNA).
Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the Vatican’s top doctrinal watchdog, said Monday that the Vatican’s new document on human dignity is as much a reflection of Pope Francis’ pastoral thinking on issues such as abortion, euthanasia, surrogacy, and gender ideology as it is a summary of the Church’s magisterial teaching.
This document is “about gathering here and consolidating what the last pontiffs have said on this great topic and to summarize the innovation offered by the current pope,” Fernández, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, said during a press conference at the Vatican coinciding with the release of the new document, titled Dignitas Infinita.
“The Church has also learned the hard way, going through difficult phases,” he added. “It has also learned to talk to the world by listening to society.”
The new document states that “the Church’s magisterium progressively developed an ever-greater understanding of the meaning of human dignity, along with its demands and consequences, until it arrived at the recognition that the dignity of every human being prevails beyond all circumstances.”
At the same time, Fernández explained, the document reflects Pope Francis’ pastoral priorities, noting that the theme of human dignity is “so present in the thought of Pope Francis” as well as “in his attitudes, in his way of treating the sick, the criminals, the forgotten, in the way he listens.”
Fernández began the midday press conference with a lengthy defense of last December’s controversial document Fiducia Supplicans, which has become a source of division within the Church. He noted that the document had garnered more than “7 billion views on the internet,” suggesting that it was the Vatican’s most-viewed document. He then pointed to an Italian survey, unnamed and unpublished, where “75% of people” under age 35 support the document, which allows for the “spontaneous” (nonliturgical) blessing of same-sex couples as well as those in “irregular” situations.
Copies of the Vatican document Dignitas Infinita, which was published on April 8, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
Asked why he began by discussing Fiducia Supplicans, Fernández said that in “recent days I have received from many people from within and outside the Vatican who told me [the speech] cannot be done as if nothing had happened. And then I accepted what they told me to do there and I extended the speech with this.”
Dignitas Infinita (“Infinite Dignity”) has been in the works for the past five years but was significantly reworked following the input of “various experts” who met at a “consulta ristretta” held on Oct. 4, 2021. Pope Francis approved the document on March 25 and subsequently ordered its publication.
The document is unequivocal in its condemnation of abortion, noting that “the acceptance of abortion in the popular mind, in behavior, and even in law itself is a telling sign of an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense.”
The document also addresses a range of new issues, including surrogacy, which “violates” the dignity of both the mother and the child, who “becomes a mere object,” as well as “gender theory,” which it describes as “extremely dangerous.”
On the question of gender theory it states: “Desiring a personal self-determination, as gender theory prescribes, apart from this fundamental truth that human life is a gift amounts to a concession to the age-old temptation to make oneself God, entering into competition with the true God of love revealed to us in the Gospel.”
With respect to sex change, the document notes: “It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.”
Fernández reiterated this point during the press conference, noting that the document addresses the topic of sex change, reflecting on the importance of “accepting the truth as it is.” He noted the socially pervasive belief that man is “omnipotent” and “thinks that with his intelligence, and his will, he is capable of building everything as if there was nothing that came before him, as if there was no reality that was given to him.”
But on the question of sex change, he noted that while there is “a deeper issue” that is not “seen,” there are “pastoral consequences, the principle of welcoming everyone, which is clear in the words of Pope Francis, he always says it: everyone, everyone.”
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Vatican City, Jun 13, 2017 / 04:35 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his message for the first World Day of the Poor, Pope Francis said that the suffering and broken bodies of the poor are where we encounter the body of Christ – and to know Christ we must … […]
Amanda Achtman’s last photo with her grandfather, Joseph Achtman. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Amanda Achtman
CNA Staff, Nov 5, 2023 / 06:00 am (CNA).
When the Canadian government began discussing the legalization of euthanasia for those whose deaths were “reasonably foreseeable,” 32-year-old Amanda Achtman said something in her began to stir. Her grandfather was in his mid-90s at the time and fit the description.
“There were a couple of times, toward the end of his life, that he faced some truly challenging weeks and said he wanted to die,” Achtman recalled. “But thank God no physician could legally concede to a person’s suicidal ideation in such vulnerable moments. To all of our surprise — including his — his condition and his outlook improved considerably before his death at age 96.”
Achtman said she and her grandfather were able to have a memorable final visit that “forged her character and became one of the greatest gifts he ever gave me.”
The experience of walking with her grandfather in his last days led Achtman to work that she believes is a calling. On Aug. 1, she launched a multifaceted cultural project called Dying to Meet You, which seeks to “humanize our conversations and experiences around suffering, death, meaning, and hope.” This mission is accomplished through a mix of interviews, short films, community events, and conversations.
Amanda Achtman speaks during the Evening Program at St. Mary’s Cathedral during “The Church as an Expert in Humanity” event in Calgary Sept. 23, 2023. Credit: Edward Chan/Community Productions
“This cultural project is my primary mission, and I am grateful to be able to dedicate the majority of my energy to it,” Achtman told CNA.
Early years
Achtman was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She grew up in a Jewish-Catholic family with, she said, “a strong attachment to these two traditions that constitute the tenor of my complete personality.”
Her Polish-Jewish grandfather, with whom she had a very close relationship as a young adult, had become an atheist because of the Holocaust and was always challenging her to face up to the big questions of mortality and morality.
“One of the ways I did this was by traveling on the March of Remembrance and Hope Holocaust study trip to Germany and Poland when I was 18,” Achtman said. “My experiences listening to the stories of Holocaust survivors and Righteous Among the Nations have undeniably forged my moral imagination and instilled in me a profound sense of personal responsibility.”
Shortly after her grandfather’s death, Achtman discovered a new English-language master’s program being offered in John Paul II philosophical studies at the Catholic University of Lublin in Poland.
“Immediately, I felt as though God were saying to me, ‘Leave your country and go to the land that I will show you — it’s Poland.’ At the time, the main things I knew about Poland were that the Holocaust had largely been perpetrated there and that Sts. John Paul II, Maximilian Kolbe, and Faustina were from there,” Achtman explained. “I wanted to be steeped in a country of saints, heroes, and martyrs in order to contemplate seriously what my life is actually about and how I could spend it generously in the service of preventing dehumanization and faithfully defending the sanctity of life in my own context.”
On Sept. 23, 2023, Amanda Achtman organized a daylong open-house-style event called “The Church as an Expert in Humanity” in Calgary, Alberta. Participants added ideas for how we, the Church, can prevent euthanasia and encourage hope. Credit: Edward Chan/Community Productions
The rise of euthanasia in Canada
In 2016, the Canadian government legalized euthanasia nationwide. The criterion to be killed in a hospital was informed consent on the part of an adult who was deemed to have a “grievous and irremediable condition.”
“The death request needed to be made in writing before two independent witnesses after a mandatory time of reflection. And, consent could be withdrawn any time before the lethal injection,” Achtman explained.
Then, in 2021, the Canadian government began to remove those safeguards. “The legislative change involved requiring only one witness, allowing the possible waiving of the need for final consent, and the removal, in many cases, of any reflection period,” Achtman told CNA.
“Furthermore, a new ‘track’ was invented for ‘persons whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable.’ This meant that Canadians with disabilities became at greater risk of premature death through euthanasia. Once death-by-physician became seen as a human right, there was practically no limit as to who should ‘qualify.’ As long as killing is seen as a legitimate means to eliminate suffering, there is no limit to who could be at risk.”
Euthanasia — now called medical assistance in dying (MAiD) in Canada — is set to further expand on March 17, 2024, to those whose sole underlying condition is “mental illness.” Last year, Dr. Louis Roy of the Quebec College of Physicians and Surgeons testified before a special joint committee that his organization thinks euthanasia should be expanded to infants with “severe malformations” and “grave and severe syndromes.”
Renewing the culture
Achtman followed the debates around end-of-life issues in Canada and wanted to figure out a way to restore “a right response to the reality of suffering and death in our lives.”
“The fact is, our mortality is part of what makes life precious, our relationships worth cherishing, and our lives worth giving out of love. That’s why we need to bring cultural renewal to death and dying, restoring our understanding of its meaning to the human condition.”
At the Sept. 23, 2023, open-house event called “The Church as an Expert in Humanity,” there were table displays of ministries in the diocese who are doing the best work on suffering, death, grief, and caregiving. Credit: Edward Chan/Community Productions
On Jan. 1, 2021, Achtman made a new year’s resolution to blog about death every single day for an entire year in a way that was “hope-filled and edifying.”
It ended up being very fruitful to Achtman personally, but she said “it also touched a surprising number of people, inspiring them to take concrete actions in their own lives that I could not have anticipated.”
The experience, Achtman said, made her realize that it’s possible to contribute to cultural renewal through things like coffee shop visits, informal interviews, posting on social media, being a guest on podcasts and webinars, organizing community events, and making videos.
“Basically, there are countless practical and ordinary ways that we can humanize the culture — wherever we are and whatever we do the rest of the time.”
The Dying to Meet You project
When it comes to the mission of Dying to Meet You, Achtman told CNA that “God has put on my heart two key objectives: the prevention of euthanasia and the encouragement of hope” and added that “the aim of this cultural project is to improve our cultural conversation and engagement around suffering, death, meaning, and hope through a mix of interviews, writing, videos, and events.”
Achtman said the project is an experiment in the themes Pope Francis speaks about often — encounter, accompaniment, going to the peripheries, and contributing to a more fraternal spirit.
“There is a strong basis for opposition to euthanasia across almost all religions and cultures, traditionally speaking,” Achtman said. “Partly from my own upbringing in a Jewish-Catholic family, I am passionate about how the cultural richness of such a plurality of traditions in Canada can bolster and enrich our value of all human life.”
To that end, one of the projects Achtman has in the works is a short film on end of life from an Indigenous perspective to be released mid-November.
“It’s not so much that we have a culture of death as we now seem to have death without culture,” said Achtman, who hopes her efforts will help change that.
An inspiring hometown event
This past Sept. 23, Achtman organized a daylong open-house-style event called “The Church as an Expert in Humanity” in her home city of Calgary, which took place at Calgary’s Cathedral, the Cathedral Hall, and the Catholic Pastoral Centre. The morning featured a ministry hall of exhibits with 18 table displays of ministries throughout the diocese doing the best work on suffering, death, grief, and caregiving. In the afternoon, there were three-panel presentations.
The morning of “The Church as an Expert in Humanity” in St. Mary’s Cathedral Hall in Calgary, Alberta, featured a ministry hall of exhibits with table displays of ministries in the diocese doing the best work on suffering, death, grief, and caregiving. Credit: Edward Chan/Community Productions
The first involved Catholics of diverse cultural backgrounds speaking about hospitality and accompaniment in their respective traditions. It included a Filipino diaconal candidate, a Ukrainian laywoman working with refugees, an elderly Indigenous woman who is a community leader, and an Iraqi Catholic priest.
The second was called “Tell Me About the Hour of Death,” where participants heard from two doctors, a priest, and a longtime pastoral care worker.
The third panel focused on papal documents pertaining to death, hope, and eternal life. A Polish Dominican sister who has worked extensively with the elderly spoke about John Paul II’s “Letter to the Elderly.”
Later, an evening program was held in Calgary’s Catholic Cathedral and included seven short testimonies by different speakers that “were narratively framed as echoes of the Seven Last Words of Christ.” Among the speakers were a privately sponsored Middle Eastern Christian refugee, a L’Arche core member who has a disability, and a young father whose daughter only lived for 38 minutes. Afterward, Calgary’s Bishop William McGrattan gave some catechesis on the Anima Christi prayer, with a special emphasis on the line “In your wounds, hide me.”
“The day was extremely uplifting and instilled the local Church with confidence that the Church indeed is an expert in humanity, capable of meeting Christ in all who suffer with a gaze of love and the steadfast insistence, ‘I will not abandon you,’” Achtman told CNA.
Calgary’s Bishop William McGrattan listens to the seven testimonies echoing the seven last words of Christ during the evening program. Credit: Edward Chan/Community Productions
Our lives are not wholly our own
Many believe euthanasia is compassionate care for those who suffer. Shouldn’t we be able to do what we want with our own lives? And can suffering have any meaning for someone who doesn’t believe in God?
Achtman said these questions remind her of something Mother Teresa said: “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other,” as well as the John Donne quote “Each man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind.”
“Our lives are not wholly our own and how we live and die affects the communities to which we belong,” Achtman said. “That is not a religious argument but an empirical observation about human life. If someone lacks ties and is without family and social support, then that is the crisis to which the adequate response is presence and assistance — not abandonment or hastened death. As one of my heroes, Father Alfred Delp, put it, a suffering person makes an ongoing appeal to your inner nobility, to your sacrificial strength and capacity to love. Don’t miss the opportunity.”
Amanda Achtman pictured with Christine, an 88-year-old woman who got a tattoo that says “Don’t euthanize me,” which is featured in a short four-minute documentary. Credit; Photo courtesy of Amanda Achtman
The mission continues
Achtman also organized a “Mass of a Lifetime,” a special Sunday Mass for residents of a local retirement home, on Oct. 15.
Attendees at the Mass of a Lifetime event, a special Sunday Mass for residents of a local retirement home held on Oct. 15, 2023, in Calgary, Alberta. Credit: Amanda Achtman
“I was inspired by a quotation of Dietrich von Hildebrand, who said: ‘Wherever anything makes Christ known, there nothing can be beautiful enough,’” Achtman said. “Applying that spirit to this Mass, we made it as elaborate as possible to show the seniors that they are worth the effort.”
Achtman also recently produced a four-minute short film about an 88-year-old woman named Christine who got a tattoo that says “Don’t euthanize me.” It can be viewed here:
Throughout 2023-2024, Achtman told CNA, she is basing herself in four different Canadian cities for three months each “in order to empower diverse faith and cultural communities in the task of preventing euthanasia and encouraging hope.” She started in her hometown of Calgary and is off to Vancouver this month.
In addition to her work with the Dying to Meet You project, Achtman does ethics education and cultural engagement with Canadian Physicians for Life and works to promote the personalist tradition with the Hildebrand Project.
How horrible that the Church, which dictates what is holy, identifies abortion as an abomination to God, and seems to accept homosexuality as “loving all mankind”. As a Christian and a Catholic I can show biblical reference in both old and new testament that homosexuality is the abomination and the Church should NOT interpret this in any other way. I Timothy 1:8-11
Pope Francis would seem to be alleging that he is allowed to proclaim “legalize homosexual civil union” as a valid expression of the Church under VATICAN II.
Of course there is no justification for such a proclamation or assertion or “papal indication” or “papal opinion”.
This is one of the things Vigano would have to address if he answered the summons on the charge of schism made against him.
Pope Francis Has to publicly retract this item he lay in public. He must do this before he dies. He can not merely privately retract it and have someone else later say, posthumously, that he retracted it. Pope Francis has called Benedict XVI to witness that it is alright for him to have made this declaration and if the matter is corrected only privately, the “validity” of the “legalize homosexual civil union” will be in perennial contestation, as will Pope Francis’ purported reversal.
That is not VATICAN II and moreover it is never the way of the Church or the Holy Spirit. Christ’s Sacrifice is not the reinsertion of sin towards a hoped-for better result in case it should work out well in the end.
The latest synodalism development is the immersion of the the Holy See with “the people of God gathered”. Artificially creating or drumming up extenuating circumstances is going to overload the problem not simplify it.
The restoration of Lefebvre would mean Vigano having to condition/repurpose his own stances. A “trial” of Vigano at this time would thus have been premature and ill-founded; and whatever the outcome, it would shall have proved to have prejudiced everyone. Charity today should afford that to Vigano and everyone else by withdrawing the charges. Charity should look for the answers to these impasses.
‘ Reports suggest that Viganò has been reconsecrated as a bishop by a prelate linked to the breakaway traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, founded by the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in the wake of Vatican II, and in social media posts regarding the Vatican decree, Viganò identified himself with Lefebvre.
“[Lefebvre’s] defense is mine; his words are mine; and his arguments are mine,” Viganò wrote.
It’s a comparison that Bisignani vigorously challenged in his June 21 essay.
“The small difference is that Marcel Lefebvre, before rejecting the documents of the Second Vatican Council – which he had voted for – had been the greatest missionary of the 20th century of the Catholic Church in Africa,” Bisignani wrote. ‘
How horrible that the Church, which dictates what is holy, identifies abortion as an abomination to God, and seems to accept homosexuality as “loving all mankind”. As a Christian and a Catholic I can show biblical reference in both old and new testament that homosexuality is the abomination and the Church should NOT interpret this in any other way. I Timothy 1:8-11
Pope Francis would seem to be alleging that he is allowed to proclaim “legalize homosexual civil union” as a valid expression of the Church under VATICAN II.
Of course there is no justification for such a proclamation or assertion or “papal indication” or “papal opinion”.
This is one of the things Vigano would have to address if he answered the summons on the charge of schism made against him.
Pope Francis Has to publicly retract this item he lay in public. He must do this before he dies. He can not merely privately retract it and have someone else later say, posthumously, that he retracted it. Pope Francis has called Benedict XVI to witness that it is alright for him to have made this declaration and if the matter is corrected only privately, the “validity” of the “legalize homosexual civil union” will be in perennial contestation, as will Pope Francis’ purported reversal.
That is not VATICAN II and moreover it is never the way of the Church or the Holy Spirit. Christ’s Sacrifice is not the reinsertion of sin towards a hoped-for better result in case it should work out well in the end.
The latest synodalism development is the immersion of the the Holy See with “the people of God gathered”. Artificially creating or drumming up extenuating circumstances is going to overload the problem not simplify it.
The restoration of Lefebvre would mean Vigano having to condition/repurpose his own stances. A “trial” of Vigano at this time would thus have been premature and ill-founded; and whatever the outcome, it would shall have proved to have prejudiced everyone. Charity today should afford that to Vigano and everyone else by withdrawing the charges. Charity should look for the answers to these impasses.
‘ Reports suggest that Viganò has been reconsecrated as a bishop by a prelate linked to the breakaway traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, founded by the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in the wake of Vatican II, and in social media posts regarding the Vatican decree, Viganò identified himself with Lefebvre.
“[Lefebvre’s] defense is mine; his words are mine; and his arguments are mine,” Viganò wrote.
It’s a comparison that Bisignani vigorously challenged in his June 21 essay.
“The small difference is that Marcel Lefebvre, before rejecting the documents of the Second Vatican Council – which he had voted for – had been the greatest missionary of the 20th century of the Catholic Church in Africa,” Bisignani wrote. ‘
https://cruxnow.com/church-in-europe/2024/06/in-italy-prominent-conservatives-back-vatican-move-against-vigano